Flashjazzcat's Blog - Writing a Graphical User Interface for the Atari 8-bit: Part 2

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Last time, I took a brief look at the history of GUIs on the Atari 8-bit, and I want to spend some more time looking at them before we move onto a detailed description of the new GUI project. Since I wrote part 1, I remembered another fledgeling GUI which was in development around the same time as Diamond: GOE (Graphical Operating Environment) by David Sullivan. This interesting package takes a slightly different approach from Diamond, but still employs the usual desktop metaphor with icons and menus. The mouse pointer interestingly eschews a player/missile graphic approach for a bitmapped, hi-res implementation.

 

 

Unlike Diamond's menus, GOE's menus don't open when hovered over, and the disk catalogue window shown in the screenshot isn't movable. The applications provided with GOE are minimal (with most features of the word processor marked "not available in the demo version"), although I particularly like the icon...

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/blog/281/entry-7852-writing-a-graphical-user-interface-for-the-atari-8-bit-part-2/